Victor Rebengiuc (; known in full as Victor-George Rebengiuc; born 10 February 1933) is a Romanian film and stage actor, also known as a civil society activist.
Since 1957, he has been a member of the Bulandra Theater company, acting in more than 200 roles on that stage alone. Having had his breakthrough performance with Liviu Ciulei's The Forest of the Hanged, Rebengiuc became a major figure in Romanian cinema, and became especially known for his 1986 appearance in Stere Gulea's The Moromete Family. He also starred in films by Dan Pița (Tănase Scatiu; Dreptate în lanțuri; Faleze de nisip; The Man of the Day) and Lucian Pintilie (De ce trag clopotele, Mitică?; Balanța; Too Late; Last Stop Paradise; Niki and Flo; Tertium non datur). Rebengiuc was celebrated for his stage performances, appearing in plays directed by, among others, Ciulei, Radu Penciulescu, Andrei Serban, Cătălina Buzoianu, Yuri Kordonsky, Gábor Tompa, and Alexandru Dabija. The former husband of actress Anca Verești, he is married to , his Bulandra colleague.
Rebengiuc's life under the communist regime provided him an anti-communist perspective, and some of his 1980s films were censored or banned by the country's officials. In 1989, he took part in the Romanian Revolution, when he was among the people who stormed into the Romanian Television building and broadcast the downfall of Nicolae Ceaușescu and an end to communist rule. Rebengiuc subsequently spoke out against political forces he believes stand for the regime's legacy in modern society, and called for the retrospective condemnation of communism. As a public figure, he has had a brief career in politics, and, since the mid-1990s, endorses non-governmental organizations.
Biography
Early life A native of Bucharest, Rebengiuc hails from a modest family. After his father was killed in action in the Second World War at Stalingrad in 1942 when he was nine years old, he and his younger brother were raised by their maternal grandparents. He grew up on the city's outskirts, in the low-income quarters, and, as he remembers, his family frequently changed residence in order to afford the rent. Evelyn Badea, "Victor Rebengiuc - talent și dăruire" , in Adevărul, 16 June 2006 Simona Chiţan, "Victor Rebengiuc: 'Mă lupt încă cu morile de vânt' ", in Evenimentul Zilei, 25 May 2008 They lived in Dristor, then in Chiajna, Rahova, Dealul Spirii, and ultimately northern Bucharest. His father Gheorghe, whom the two sons seldom met, was drafted during World War II, and died fighting in the Army during the Battle of Stalingrad; Ovidiu Șimonca, " 'Încă nu mă consider un actor mare' " (interview with Victor Rebengiuc), in Observator Cultural, Nr. 412, February 2008 Victor and his brother were subsequently granted a pension. His mother worked as a clerk, and, just before her retirement, was an employee of the Transport Ministry. Rebengiuc credits his father's genes with his own acting ability. He noted in an interview: "I was pained by my father's absence and, in a way, I always felt like there was something missing, although the bond between us was not strong."
Victor Rebengiuc completed his secondary studies at the Military High School, a school which he is grateful to for having instilled in him a sense of discipline. After a period of collaboration with an amateur troupe located in the Vitan area, Rebengiuc attended the Theater Institute, where he had for his professor actress Aura Buzescu, whom he credits, alongside Clody Bertola, with having inspired his technique. Marius Chivu, " 'Sînt un om simplu, merg pe jos și mă îmbrac modest' " (interview with Victor Rebengiuc) , in Dilema Veche, Vol. II, Nr. 94, November 2005 Among the artists who have shaped his work, Rebengiuc also includes the major Soviet actors Mikhail Zharov and Ruben Simonov, whose performances in films he followed closely, and his older Romanian colleague Radu Beligan. Laura Popescu, "Victor Rebengiuc: 'Eu sunt acolo undeva, în spate, curentul electric care le animă' ", at LiterNet (originally published in Ghidul HBO, November 2004); retrieved 29 May 2008 He says: "Back when I started I was acting with the amateurs, I was imitating Beligan. [...] Only when I was undergoing examination at the Institute, I was told, 'hey, you're imitating Beligan!' And then I realized it and try to get rid of this thing."
He graduated in 1956, and, after a six-month stint at the National Theater in Craiova,Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Who's Who in Contemporary World Theatre, Routledge, London, 2002, p.254. returned to Bucharest, settling in the vicinity of the Cișmigiu Gardens and starting work with Bulandra. Rebengiuc was at the time in a relationship with Anca Verești, whom he married in 1960, divorcing her five years later.
Rebengiuc's first drama role was as Biff in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, a performance which he regrets, describing its director, Dinu Negreanu, as an untalented person promoted over "political reasons". He also recounts that training for the part brought his first collaboration with Liviu Ciulei, which he sees as one of the few positive aspects of the production. At around the same time, he began a collaboration with the Teatrul Mic company and director Radu Penciulescu, being, together with Leopoldina Bălănuţă, George Constantin and Olga Tudorache, one of the first actors to embark on the project. Simona Chiţan, "Prietenia lui Rebengiuc", in Evenimentul Zilei, 13 December 2009 Rebengiuc appeared in several of Penciulescu's experimental productions: Two for the Seesaw by William Gibson, Tango by Sławomir Mrożek and Richard II by William Shakespeare. Theater critic Simona Chiţan saw the collaboration as an aspect of the liberalization following the socialist realist years: "Penciulescu and Rebengiuc have thus opened [...] a positive period for Romanian theater: the repertoire had been widened, foreign, not just Soviet, plays were being performed, authors modern for the age in question had their plays produced."
First major roles
Rebengiuc debuted in cinema with the 1956 Mîndrie, and went on to minor roles in several films, including the 1960 Furtuna, adapted by Andrei Blaier from one of Titus Popovici's writings, Iulian Mihu's Poveste sentimentală (from a work by Horia Lovinescu) and Darclée, the biographical story of opera singer Hariclea Darclée. In 1965, Victor Rebengiuc portrayed Apostol Bologa, the central character in Ciulei's film The Forest of the Hanged (adapted from Liviu Rebreanu's novel of the same name). The film earned Ciulei the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival,Romanian Cinema: A Journey, joint press release of the Romanian Cultural Institute and Ciné Lumière, London, 18 October 2007, p.2 and was received with a standing ovation at the Acapulco Film Festival in Mexico. Thirty-six years after, Rebengiuc acknowledged that the film was his breakthrough role, Irina Margareta Nistor, "Interviu cu Victor Rebengiuc și Mariana Mihuț - Cei doi magnifici" , at LiterNet; retrieved 28 May 2008 and indicated that the film's depiction of ethnic conflicts in Austria-Hungary made it "absolutely fresh, undated", drawing a parallel between its script and the issues posed by the Yugoslav wars. According to his recollections, his "angelic face" had initially been judged unsatisfactory by Ciulei, but he managed to convince during casting. He also says that, upon receiving the news of his acceptance, "my legs began trembling and I fell off my chair".
It was on the set that he met and fell in love with , marrying her in 1965. He fathered a son, Tudor, in 1974, and later recounted that his wife had decided to keep him only because abortion had been outlawed and the clandestine interventions had become unsanitary (see Abortion in Romania, Decreței). Tudor Rebengiuc is a known architect.
Ever since he became known to the public, Rebengiuc established himself as one of the leading actors of his generation, and won praise for both his technique and natural ability. Bulandra Theater profile ; retrieved 29 May 2008 Philosopher and critic Andrei Pleșu writes: "Victor Rebengiuc can act magnificently in any role, for he never acts in the role of 'the artist'. The only 'signal' of his specific involvement is, perhaps, the unmistakable crystal-like nature of his speech, the break-through diction, the natural attention toward the clarity of the vocal emission and the message. And this does not mean the usual affectation of the stage, the pedantic, artificial care for sound effects, for the virile imposture of the voice. It means the respect for the text, for the partner in dialog and for the language. Victor Rebengiuc's talent stems, most of all, from a certain cult for the truth [...] and a most rare ability for what is natural." The actor acknowledges having a fear for improvisation, and recounts having prepared himself intensely for each of his roles. Collaborating with important stage directors such as Ciulei, Cătălina Buzoianu and Andrei Şerban, Rebengiuc won further notability for his performances in adaptations of Shakespearean plays (Orlando in As You Like It, Brutus in Julius Caesar, the title role in Richard II), as well as in those of Henrik Ibsen (Bernick in The Pillars of Society and the main character in Rosmersholm), Anton Chekhov (Michail Lvovich Astroff in Uncle Vanya), Oscar Wilde (Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest), Eugene O'Neill (Long Day's Journey into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten) and Tennessee Williams (Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire). Before Penciulescu left for Sweden, he and Rebengiuc also worked on the Bulandra version of Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy (known in Romanian as Vicarul, "The Vicar").
After his debut in cinema, Rebengiuc became a regular presence on screen. His next film was the 1967 Nay-dalgata nosht, by Bulgarian director Vulo Radev, where he starred opposite Nevena Kokanova as the British prisoner. Two years later, under the direction of Mihai Iacob, Rebengiuc starred in The Castle of the Condemned. During the late 1960s and 1970s, he was present in two screen adaption from works by Romania's classical writer Ion Luca Caragiale (Cadou and O scrisoare pierdută). In 1972 and 1973, he starred two adaption of Manole Marcus' adaptations of scripts by Titus Popovici: Conspiraţia and Departe de Tipperary. Also in 1973, he appeared in Gheorghe Vitanidis' Dimitrie Cantemir, and, the following year, had one of the main roles in Constantin Vaeni's Zidul. Rebengiuc also had a role in the 1976 Tănase Scatiu (an adaptation of Duiliu Zamfirescu's Comăneştenilor literary cycle), which was his first collaboration with director Dan Piţa. Two years later, he appeared in Marcus' Cyanide and the Rain Drop, in Vaeni's Buzduganul cu trei peceţi, and in Piţa's The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians. In 1979, he was in The Man in the Overcoat, directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu.
During the late 1970s, Rebengiuc was also required to appear in a series of film productions that he admits were of little quality and mainly catered to the ideological tenets newly imposed by the communist regime and President Nicolae Ceauşescu (see July Theses). As an example, he cites Buzduganul cu trei peceţi, where he portrayed the main character, late 16th-century conqueror of Transylvania Michael the Brave. Of communist films based on Michael's life, Rebengiuc says: "Michael the Brave was Ceauşescu himself [only] with a beard, mustache and a fur hat, and what came out of his mouth were Ceauşescu's speeches." Rebengiuc also states not having "any regret" for not being invited to star in similar films directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu.